The U.S. Navy officer who produced and aired lewd videos onboard an aircraft carrier is to be relieved of his command, it was revealed today.

A senior defense official said the Navy has chosen a commander to replace Captain Owen Honors on the nuclear-powered ship that is currently stationed in Norfolk and scheduled to deploy to the Middle East this month.

But the shamed officer has received outpourings of support from high-ranking fellow officers, including one former female Navy pilot.

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Skit: The videos were meant to be 'educational' and draw attention to a number of issues on board the ship

Naked: In this scene from the video shown on USS Enterprise, Capt Owen Honors pulls back the shower curtain to reveal two apparently naked servicemen

A former female Navy
pilot, Lt. Carey Lohrenz, appeared on ABC News to claim the videos had been 'taken out of context.'

Lt. Lohrenz said, 'I would like to think that the people responsible for
leading in the Navy wouldn't go forward with videos like this. However, I
think it's important to remember this is being taken, to a certain
extent, out of context.'

'To think this is really a cultural or systemic problem, that there's a leadership problem: I think we need to be careful.'

She added that while she had not seen all the videos, the ones
she had seen did not convince her that Honors should lose his post as
commander aboard the USS Enterprise.

Lt. Lohrenz chose her words cautiously, but questioned the calls to sack the captain.
'I think there's certain terminology involved that, in retrospect, I
would imagine that Captain Honors would say was really not a good idea,"
Lohrenz said.

But she added: 'This is an individual that, by all accounts, has been
an exceptional leader, an exceptional aviator. ... We need to proceed
very cautiously when we just automatically have a really strong reaction
and say, "Hey, this guy needs to be out of there".'

Lt. Carey Lohrenz appeared on ABC News to defend the commander of the USS Enterprise, saying the videos had been 'taken out of context'

Pete Clarke, a former Navy officer and friend of Capt. Honors, says
that relieving the decorated commander of his command was unfair.

He claimed that only the
subordinates on the ship were supposed to see the videos.

The videos, allegedly produced by Captain Owen Honors of the USS
Enterprise, include swearing, gay slurs and images of naked women
taking a shower.

Capt Owen Honors appeared in the videos in 2006
and 2007 while he was the USS Enterprise's second-ranking officer, and
showed them across the ship on closed-circuit television. He took over
as the ship's commander in May.

The Navy said it planned to investigate the videos, which it called 'clearly inappropriate.'

'The videos were intended to be humorous skits focusing the crew's attention on specific issues such as port visits, traffic safety, water conservation, ship cleanliness, etc.,' the Navy said in a statement.

But on the carrier's Facebook page, many
sailors and others were coming to Capt Honors' defence.

Gordon Wilcox wrote: 'I served on Enterprise for the last three years of my 21-year Navy
Career. I would love to go to sea with a man like this, who can lighten
up a extremely stressful job.'

Shaun Valentine wrote: 'We all looked forward to those videos from Honors while underway. We
can not ruin a good man's career for the sake of petty political
correctness.'

Chief Petty Officer Andrew Hodyl said: 'I too was on that deployment. Capt Honors brought up our morale and
provided well-needed and appreciated comic relief. We were underway for
long durations, supporting two theatres of war simultaneously, he
brought many smiles to a worn out and tired crew. I can easily say
that all of the crew, ship's company and air wing embarked,
appreciated the videos.'

In a video obtained by the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, Capt Honors addresses the camera
and introduces a series of several lewd video clips, which he
acknowledges have drawn complaints.

Scandal: Capt Honors claimed his favourite topic was 'chicks in the shower'

Distasteful: The navy has launched an investigation over the commander's actions

'As usual, the admiral and the captain have no idea about the contents of the video or movie this evening, and they should not be held accountable in any judicial setting,' Capt Honors says on the video.

'Over the years I've gotten several complaints about inappropriate
material during these videos, never to me personally but, gutlessly,
through other channels.'

During this introduction, he also uses a
derogatory term for gays.

Next comes a sequence of what appear to
be outtakes in which Capt Honors and others curse.

Lewd: Capt Owen Honors takes part in a comedy routine in one of the crude videos shown to the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise

Fooling around: However, the footage appears to belong on a late night comedy show rather than on a warship

Rude: The video shows Capt Owen P. Honors (centre) with two other servicemen. The film is littered with a series of profanities and distasteful jokes

Capt Honors observes that comedians who performed on the ship always
got laughs when they used 'the f-bomb.'

After that, the
officer and others are shown mimicking sex acts.

Distinguished: Capt Owen Honors was was the USS Enterprise's second-ranking officer when the films were made and shown to its crew

Capt Honors
segues to the next segment by saying, 'Finally let's get to my favorite
topic ... chicks in the shower.'

Then the film shows clips of
pairs of women and a pair of men pretending to shower together. No
nudity is shown, but the men's and women's bare shoulders imply they are
nude.

Cmdr Chris Sims said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the videos 'were not acceptable then and are not acceptable in today's Navy.'

Commanding officers and enlisted chiefs 'are charged to lead by example
and are held accountable for setting the proper tone and upholding the
standards of honor, courage and commitment that we expect Sailors to
exemplify,' Sims said in the statement.

Capt Honors a 1983 alumnus of the U.S. Naval Academy and was a naval aviator before holding command. He attended the U.S. Naval Fighter Weapons School, also known as Top Gun.

It was not immediately clear where the ship was located when the videos were produced.

The Enterprise served a six-month deployment in support of the war in Iraq in 2006 and another six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2007.

Commissioned in 1961, it's the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

It is scheduled to sail two more deployments before it is decommissioned
in 2013. It can carry a crew of more than 5,800.

Jewel in Navy's crown: The USS Enterprise upon which the lewd videos were shown to members of the crew